Team Fortress 2
Team Fortress 2, often abbreviated as "TF2" and less often abbreviated as "t4t" (Team 4tress Two) is arguably a multiplayer, class-based first person shooter developed by Valve Software. Releasing in mi videojuego favorito1998 as a sequel to a Quake mod, the game would release 9 years later. The game is most known for its unique sense of humor (e.g. unconventional weapons, exaggerated personalities, racism, taunts), an art style that's absolutely still being followed, and its cast of distinct characters.
History
Team Fortress 2 began as a sequel to the popular Quake mod, Team Fortress. Artistically, Team Fortress 2 was going to be very similar to its predecessor, until Valve realized games made in the Source engine are fucking ugly and chose to go with heavily stylized designs for all assets in the game. After announcing a second delay in the games development, Valve took their annual 6 year long break where they don't fucking telling anyone what they're doing or if they're even doing anything at all.
In June of 2006, the Nathu La pass between India and China, which was sealed during the Sino-Indian War, re-opened for trade after 44 years. Team Fortress 2 was also unveiled at E3. Only one of these was celebrated.
The most notable change was Team Fortress 2's change in art style, which resembled early 20th century war propaganda, a subtle nod to the game's goal of indoctrinating players into the United States military to bomb developing countries for oil. This style had been done through use of specialized in-house lighting and rendering technique that would make extensive use of 'Phong shading.' When our previous wiki editor asked Valve what phong shading was, he was shot in the head and thrown in an alley. Needless to say, Valve was very secretive of their inner workings.
Team Fortress 2 would release on October 10, 2007, which was 21 days behind the previously expected Halloween release date, which would have emphasized how horrifyingly bad the game was on launch. According to a man 13 years from the future, the game was "horribly unbalanced, unoptimized, had poor map designs, and the Pyro couldn't even airblast."[citation needed] Despite this scathing criticism, Team Fortress 2 would go on to sell at least 3 copies and was overall received well by critics, being rated by most major gaming news outlets at an average of 92/100%.
On June 23, 2011, Team Fortress 2 oddly seemed to have lowered the game's cost from $20 to $0. This strange decision caused Valve's profits to enter the negatives, and the company was shut down only a few months later. The former office has been demolished and replaced with a Subway.
Gameplay
Games of Team Fortress 2 are usually between two opposing teams of 12 players, either on team BLU (Builders League United) or RED (RED doesn't stand for anything.) Usually, the teams of players compete for an objective through combat. Contrary to popular belief, team composition is not important to the outcome of a game; Since the Spy and Sniper classes are capable of killing players in one hit, it is objectively best to have a team composed of as many of these two classes as possible to ensure victory. Very rarely, a player may choose to pick a lesser class such as the Medic or Heavy. This is referred to as 'throwing,' as the team is put at a disadvantage by it.
All matches of Team Fortress 2 have a specific gamemode with unique objectives. There are five core modes, Attack/Defend (A/D), 2Fort (ctf_2fort), Control Points (CP), King of the Hill (an American animated sitcom created by Mike Judge), and Payload (PL). There are alternative gamemodes, which are usually much more casual by design and emphasize the game's silly nature, such as the exclusively melee weapon Medieval Mode. Nobody plays them.
Each class has different stats, such as movement speed and health, alongside exclusive weapons that all help them to achieve their intended goal of either offense, defense, or support. On top of this, all classes have a unique set of unlockable weapon side-grades that help them better achieve the objective depending on the situation, leading to thousands of potential interactions. For example, a player who is playing the Sniper class might find themself struggling in close combat with tankier, more agile classes like the Scout or Soldier. To help alleviate this entirely unintended result, a Sniper can switch from using a worthless SMG and standard machete to the Jarate secondary and Bushwacka melee to completely negate his close range weakness.
Classes
A defining feature of Team Fortress 2, classes bring certain strengths to a team's composition. Below are all available classes in-game.
Scout
The Scout, also known as Jerma985, is a high mobility class, capable of getting close to enemies, missing every shot in his clip, and then dying to a sentry. Equipped with a scattergun, a pistol, and a baseball bat by default, the Scout is ideal for dealing chip damage at long range to scare away potential attackers, keeping his team safe from danger. Because of your low health, you don't want to risk being caught up close and defenseless. Your high movement speed can help you run away from moments like this and return to the safety of the back lines, where you'll be most efficient.
Notable Unlocks
Force-a-Nature: A scattergun that deals knockback on hit. Useful if you're in close quarters to help you escape, but a good Scout wouldn't ever be caught in that situation, so it's widely regarded as a 'crutch' weapon.
Baby Face's Blaster: Scattergun that rewards you for dealing damage with increased movement speed. A good choice to get around the map faster. Possibly Scout's best weapon.
Bonk! Atomic Punch: Replaces your pistol with a can of soda that makes you immune to damage for 8 seconds. However, a hidden downside that many don't know about is that the drink is filled with battery acid, which reduces your lifespan by a few months on each use. It's recommended to use this weapon sparingly.
Mad Milk: Replaces the pistol with a glass of milk. The milk is really gross. Worthless.
Sandman: A replacement for the default bat that can fire a baseball that slows enemies on hit. Very useful for supporting your team and doing long range damage.
Holy Mackerel: Replaces bat with a fish. Really funny.
Soldier
The Soldier, also know as that one player thats way better than you, is a patriotic terrorist from a backwards country known as America, fitting his explosive playstyle. As a soldier, your priority should be to constantly harass the enemy with rockets from your rocket launcher. Your 'fire' button should constantly be held down, shooting an endless barrage of rockets at players, dealing splash damage to catch anyone unfortunate enough to be near the blast. As most gamers know, rocket launchers are the most overpowered weapon. Therefore, you should exclusively use yours. Your secondary shotgun requires you to track enemy movement, and can be inconsistent in damage output and is only useful for single targets. Soldier's melee, a shovel, is only good for digging mass graves for the corpses of those destroyed by your rocket launcher.
Notable Unlocks
Direct Hit: A side-grade rocket launcher that's unfortunately held back by a lack of splash damage. However, if you can master it, the 25% damage bonus can be a blessing.
Black Box: Rewards you with health for hitting enemies, at the cost of one less rocket in your clip. Broken weapon. You should always use this if you take self-damage from your explosives.
Rocket Jumper: Deals ZERO damage. Absolutely useless.
Beggar's Bazooka:
Buff Banner: Will give you temporary mini-crits if you deal enough damage. Amazing if you can keep yourself alive long enough.
Concheror: Similar to the Buff Banner, but gives a healing effect passively and takes less damage to charge. Absolutely unstoppable with the Black Box.
Battalion's Backup: Not very useful, as it doesn't give you damage bonuses. The best defense is a good offense, as they say.
Gunboats: Claims to reduce self-damage by 60%, but after weeks of studying, does not have a notable impact. Possibly bugged?
Escape Plan: Marks you for death and it's harder to heal. Not good at all. Hopefully is rebalanced in a new update.
Pain Train: Gay upgrade on offense, gay downgrade on defense. The only perfectly balanced weapon.
Pyro
The Pyro is a bad class. Not bad as in "overpowered" and "unfair," but rather in the literal sense. While other classes have an easily understood purpose, with unlockables that can change their playstyles, Pyro's a complete mixed bag; a jack of all trades, master of none. Are they supposed to deal high damage in close quarters against groups? Because the Scout and Heavy can easily outclass Pyro, and the two explosive classes can do group damage much better without having to be so close to the enemy. Are they a defense class that makes use of airblast to hold back übers? Because there are better ways of being prepared to handle an übercharge. Are they support, being able to counter Spies and remove sappers? Because a Spy's true counter isn't Pyro, it's team communication. This entire class seemed underdeveloped from the start, as Pyro lacked airblast or weapons that allow "combo-ing" and the ability to remove sappers for a good amount of time in the game's history. It's very likely Valve still doesn't know what the Pyro is meant to be, and they have given the class weapons that try and give the player choices in what kind of playstyle they want, even if it's not effective. This is all serious, by the way. This entire page has been a joke until now, but I genuinely do believe Pyro is one of the most flawed classes in the game simply design-wise.
Notable Unlocks
The Degreaser: In exchange for lower afterburn damage and slightly higher reflect cost, you get the ability to swap to other weapons faster. Is actually one of Pyro's best weapons, since combos with flares and shotguns are actually pretty powerful and fun to pull off, and are the only thing Pyro really has that's unique.
The Phlogistinator: Everyone knows this weapon and hates it. Free crits for doing what your class already does is bad weapon design. But in all seriousness, this flamethrower sucks. Is it annoying when your entire team gets wiped by a Pyro player on his 5th hour of gameplay? Yes. But that's all it is. Annoying. Killing a Pyro isn't hard, most classes can easily do it, especially now that you know they can't airblast and mess you up. If your team is getting easily wiped by a Phlog Pyro, it's more likely that your team is performing like shit, giving the Pyro free damage by making stupid decisions and not communicating when they have crits. Seriously, this thing sucks.
All of Pyro's flare guns: Pyro's regular flares can be pretty satisfying to hit honestly. 90 burst damage is actually incredible, likely to kill light classes if they can't reach a health pack in time. And while the Detonator doesn't do as much damage, the utility of being able to flare jump is extremely powerful in itself, and isn't horrible as a weapon. Fuck the Scorch Shot.
Gas Passer: Literally the worst weapon in the game. Think the Sharpened Volcano Fragment is bad for setting enemies on fire when your flamethrower is literally better at that? Try setting enemies on fire only once before the longest recharge for anything in the entire game.
Third Degree: The ONLY weapon to be a straight upgrade from stock, with no downside. Insanely broken, I don't know how this hasn't been changed yet.
Demoman
Heavy
Engineer
Main Page: Engineer
For the gallery page of this character, see Engineer/Gallery
Medic
Sniper
"the greatest trick the devil pulled was convincing the world that map design didnt exist" -the killer
Spy
pick a better class idiot
Cultural Impact
Team Fortress 2 is noted for having a great cultural impact on society. TF2 was so popular, they made Boston a real place. The chat in TF2 was also so impactful (on the general intelligence of society), every game from then on had moderation as to make sure this never happened again.
Hidden Mechanics
Did you know? TF2 has a few hidden mechanics that aren't mentioned in-game! Here they are! Airstrafing, C-Tapping, Backpedal speed, Disguise Hitbox Displacement, Crit Heals, Bhopping, Random Bullet Spread, Damage falloff, Splash Damage Falloff (works differently for some reason), Grenade deviation, Detonator Jumping, Resupply Binds, Quickscope-minimum-time-scoped-in thingy, Headglitching (this is a mechanic not a bug i know what it says), Maximum Payload Capture Rate, Control Point Capture Rate, Scripting (the allowed kind), Repairing Moving Buildings, Fall Damage Being Based on Velocity, Crossbow Giving Uber (which is also affected by crit heals???), Disguises Reloading, Backstab Hitboxes, Every Single Rocket Jump Tech, Sticky Grenade Damage Rampup, First-shot Accuracy, All of spy's guns have different bullet spread, Lingering Flame Particles, Picking up a weapon gives you its clips and ammo, Telefragging, Crouch Jumping, Crit Chance Rampup, Sentries shooting spies after they disguised if they saw the spy put on the disguise, Custom hitsounds/HUDs, Every single MVM mechanic, Respawn timers being affected by capturing points, Building Ubercharge, Teammates blocking melee attacks, Huntsman Hitboxes, etc.
Competitive play
Looks like this:
There are also famous competitive teams. It's theorised that the fastest way to improve at TF2 is to be Yuri.
Updates
TF2 is a game distributed online. Because of this never seen before technology, things like patches are able to be added to the game. Sometimes, the game can even get new content. Because TF2 has a stable playerbase without having a content update in six years, we absolutely NEED a new update #FIXETF2 #HEAVYUPDA. Make sure to spend your time posting your sweet ideas to the steam forums instead of playing the game.
EDIT: hoolyyyy shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit
the time they saved tf2
One time the item servers went down for two whole days but nobody in the #savetf2 hashtag noticed because they don't play the game.[right] Unfortunately, the item servers were fixed. Not related to any of this, a Change.org petition was made to #savetf2. I'm serious, people are actually doing this. fuck tf2 fans i hope they get exactly one more update and the heavy marries a woman
the time they saved tf2 again
After another hashtag (this time #fixtf2) made by stubborn people, Valve rose from the dead and, with the money gained from Subway, paid the real life Team Fortress 2 mercenaries to find and destroy all of the bots that infest the game. This is what inspired the gamemode Mann VS Machine. This was a blunder for the game as it made the Gas Passer actually good and everyone hates it.
Soundtrack
According to internal emails leaked from the source engine in 2023, 2018, 2016 (valve famously had their emails stored inside the compiled versions of the source engine), one of the developers was duped by some random guy on the internet pretending to be "Valve Studio Orchestra". Later emails from the leaks say "Orchestra? Video games are supposed to be like "Missile Command" and "Bubble Bobble". Why would we need an orchestra?". However, the contract was made regardless, and the only music file in the game would play loud as fuck on the title screen every time the game was booted up.
